NEW GREECE, THE CENTENARIAN, FORGES AHEAD
"THE SHIP OF ODYSSEUS" AT CORFU
Pontikonisi, at the entrance to Corfu's former naval port, is called "Mouse Island" because
of its neatness.
But legend makes it a petrified sailing ship, and to Homer it was "a mark of
vengeance on the sable deep."
In the Odyssey, he relates the story of how Poseidon vented his
spite on Ulysses with the permission of Zeus, who said: "Friend . .
.
when all the people
of the town look off and see her sailing, then turn her to stone close to the shore, yet like a
swift ship still, that all the folk may marvel. . .
.
And, glancing at his neighbor, a PhXeacian
man would say: 'Hah! Who stopped that swift ship on the sea as she was running in?'"
This winter, for the first time in history,
Athens has an adequate supply of water
(see illustration, page 656). In fertile
Macedonia and Thrace new towns are
springing up.
The close relationship with America is
having a wide influence. We exchange
men. We buy her best tobacco, currants,
and carpets. Greece takes $25,000,000
worth of goods from us every year, and
Greek-Americans send enough cash to
their relatives in Hellas to pay the bill.
The landscape of Hellas fashioned early
Greek character. Now, with fertile plains
being tilled, lakes and swamps drained,
and rivers tamed, the Greek is asserting
himself in a renewed conquest of this his-
toric land, its ample coastline washed by
the much-murmuring sea.
ACROSS HELLAS BY AIR
It is typical of the spirit of the age that
our first trip across Greece was by air.
Our big seaplane flew from Troy to Ithaka
in five hours. Odysseus spent ten years
on the way.
Our return flight started in Italy and
took five days. Circling above the lone
pillar at Brindisi which marked the end
of the Appian Way, we followed the fer
tile but malarial Italian plain to Otranto.
As we crossed to Corfu, used by the first
naval unit of ancient Greece, Italian de
stroyers plowed the same sea.
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